This invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing needle attached sutures, in which the end of a surgical needle or its equivalent is swaged in a state that the lead end of a suture is inserted in an insertion hole formed in the end of the needle to attach the suture to the needle.
Recently, in the field of medical industry, there have been marketed sterilized needle attached sutures (sutures attached with needles) in which the lead end of a suture is fixedly attached to a needle. Such needle attached suture can be produced by retaining a needle in a certain orientation, and swaging the end of the needle after inserting the lead end of a suture in an insertion hole formed in the end of the needle (as disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. HEI 4-66579).
The diameter of the suture and the corresponding insertion hole of the needle is very small (generally, in the range of 260 to 400 .mu.m). Accordingly, it is difficult to assuredly insert the lead end of the suture into the insertion hole of the needle. The above publication discloses a guide member formed with a tapered guide hole whose diameter decreases approaching the insertion hole of the needle. The guide member is designed to guide the lead end of the suture toward the insertion hole of the needle in order to facilitate insertion of the lead end of the suture into the insertion hole of the needle.
The above prior art apparatus, contrary to the motivation of enhancing smooth insertion of the suture into the insertion hole of the needle, may hinder the smooth insertion of the suture in the case that the axis of the guide hole of the guide member is misaligned from the axis of the insertion hole of the needle. Accordingly, to effectively utilize the guide member, it is required to accurately position the guide hole of the guide member relative to the insertion hole of the needle.
However, the guide member of the above apparatus is disposed relatively far away from the insertion hole of the needle with the swaging dies interposed therebetween, and accordingly it is difficult to accurately align the guide hole of the guide member with the insertion hole of the needle. In addition, the swaging dies also need to be positioned accurately to obtain a desired swaging force when the end of the needle is to be swaged after the step of inserting the suture in the insertion hole of the needle. However, it takes a great deal of time and care to accurately position the swaging dies and the guide member relative to the end of the needle separately.
Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. HEI 4-60654 discloses an arrangement in which the location of the needle and suture is monitored through an image processing by a TV camera and an insertion operation of the suture into the needle is conducted referring to the monitored image. This arrangement needs a complicated and large-scaled facility and hence increase of the facility cost is inevitable.